Within These Walls
by Blue-eyed Rancor
Summary: The walls were built neither to keep in nor keep out, they were inconsequential, merely a negligible factor in their lives. Yugi along with his friends live under such a pretence until events occur that begin to blur the line between reality and imagination, tugging at a loose string in the interwoven web they lay.


Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of the characters within, I only own my characters and the plot/story.

 **Chapte 1: Heisa**

Within the walls, they were safe, there was life, there the trees grew, the sun shone, and the winds blew. There, the rain poured, the snow fell, and darkness roamed.

The walls were negligible, inconsequential, built neither to keep in nor keep out. So they were taught, and so they thrived.

Life was good, simple and exciting for the inhabitants of the city, a place simply called Heisa.

Yugi Mutou just stared out the window, thinking about nothing in particular. Free time like that was rather uncommon during school hours, it was odd how sullen the class was.

The bell rung, classes were over. As though some invisible button was pushed, the class suddenly became filled with chatter. Yugi proceeded to replace his books in his bag, leaving the class afterwards with it in hand.

His frankly extravagant hair bounced slightly with each step he took, being a distinguished part of himself he preffered keeping it the way it was, despite how much of a pain keeping it neat was.

"You're bending again."

Yugi straightened his arching spine with odd alertness, the speaker chuckled at how jumpy the boy was.

"Oh, Anzu." He smiled sheepishly.

"Why do you always walk like that?" The taller girl asked.

"A bad habit I guess." He replied, still smiling. Yugi had certainly grown over time but he hadn't reached Anzu's height yet.

"It's rare to see you leave school without Jonouchi or Honda in tow." Anzu noticed. "Where are they?"

"I don't know, I didn't see either of them in school." Yugi answered. "That's probably why today's been so weird."

"Let's stop by their houses then." She suggested.

"Sure."

The school compound was a sight to behold, in every direction one faced they would see a odd creature, whether a product of myth or imagination. These were monsters of the game Duel Monsters.

Duel Monsters was more than a game to the inhabitants of Heisa, it was deeply interwoven into every day life. People would face off against each other in a contest involving luck, wits, skill and occasionally wealth.

The card game made use of a portable holographic interphase known as a Duel Disk which rendered the images of the cards into 3D holograms with pseudo-mass. How this was possible, not too many people knew, but the entertainment they derived from it far outweighed the need to understand its inner workings.

Yugi Muto, despite his innocuous appearance, was regarded as one of the best players of Duel Monsters, known as Duelists. So what would have been an extraordinary sight in the past was quite normal for them.

"Do you think they ditched school to go to the card shop?" Anzu asked.

"C'mon," Yugi argued. "They might be obsessed with the game, but I don't think even they can do that."

"You have so much faith in them."

Yugi shrugged. "We've all been friends for long, so I think we'd know each other." They continued their walk, leaving the school behind.

The streets were calm, occasionally a bus or truck passed by, there were not so many privately owned vehicles in Heisa, most people who didn't want to walk just took a bus.

Plastered upon the side of some buses was the picture of the charasmatic governor of Heisa, Shimomura Nobu. Nobu always wore a smile on his face, eloquent and levelheaded, he always knew what to say to people, even in bad situations, a quality that led to him obtaining the position of governor.

Honda hadn't been at his house, his neighbours said he had left dressed in his school uniform in the morning. 'Maybe Jonouchi got into trouble and he went to help him.' Yugi reasoned.

The breeze was cool and soothing, contrasting the heat evolved by the sun, the weather in Heisa was indeed good.

"Yugi! Anzu!"

Running towards the pair was a black haired boy, stopping as Yugi and Anzu ran towards him. Out of breath and rather ragged looking, his jacket was soaked with sweat, giving rise to uneven patches of a darker shade of its original blue. 'How far did he run?' Anzu wondered.

"Honda, what happened?!" Yugi said, alarmed at the older boy's state.

"I- It's Jonouchi, he's i- Shizuka's in trouble." Honda managed to choke out.

"Where are they?" Anzu asked.

"Beside th-the factory." He said, his breathing slowing down.

"What factory?!"

"The one behind the mall."

Yugi took off immediately, not wanting to waste even a second.

"Yugi!" Anzu called, running after him.

"Wait!" Honda followed suit, surprisingly still able to follow.

* * *

Within minutes Yugi arrived at the factory Honda described, he was confused. Jonouchi was on the ground, his clothes dirty and battered looking, opposite him, a few feet away, a policeman stood.

There was nothing signifying a physical altercation despite how Jonouchi looked, the police man had no weapon on him as far as Yugi could see, no gun at his side, no baton either.

"Erm, officer d-"

"Yugi!" The fallen boy called. "It's that bastard, he has Shizuka."

"What?" Yugi couldn't help but blurt out.

The policeman was bald, his expression was neutral; he was neither frowning no smiling.

"H-how? W-when? What happened to you?"

Before Jonouchi could open his mouth and answer, the man spoke. "Let's have a duel, defeat me, I'll tell you where she is."

'What the hell?' Yugi screamed in his mind. "What the hell?! How can you play with someone's live by dueling for it?!"

"D-don't do it, he'll just- he'll just injure you." Jonouchi said, coughing. "That's what he did to me."

"What are you saying?" Yugi asked, his voice faltering. "Th-they're supposed to just be holograms."

"Jonouchi!" Honda yelled as he and Anzu arrived.

"What happened?" The girl asked, frantic.

"Are we doing this or not?" The man asked, impatiently.

"Doing what?" Anzu asked.

"Yugi don't…" Jonouchi argued.

Yugi turned to face the man, slowly. A small smile crept on the man's face as he saw the look on Yugi's face.

"Terrified eh, interesting." He stated. He muttered something inaudible and hardly a second after an apparatus which looked much like a Duel Disk appeared on his hand. It was slightly different though, the main house of the Duel Disk, usually a slightly spherical construct strapped to the hand was absent, the curved portion of the Duel Disk upon which the cards were place was much more sleeker and all the metallic looking components invisible, instead it looked like a black skin had been placed over it, completely.

Yugi looked down, attached to his left hand was the same Duel Disk. It looked unreal, fake, like something that shouldn't exist.

"A duel?!" A confused Anzu blurted.

"He thinks it's all a game." Jonouchi muttered, the rage he felt conveyed by his words. "Playing with someone's life like that…"

"Now, shall we…" the man said, arms outstretched. "Duel!"

Yugi place his deck in the compartment provided, his hands shaking as his did.

Yugi: 4000 Policeman: 4000

From the holographic box showing his 4000 Lifepoints, Yugi concluded the Duel Disks did work, but how the man could get his hand on such technology and, not to mention strap it on Yugi's own hand, was beyond him.

"I'll take the first move." The man stated. "Kids these days don't like going first, do they?"

"I set a monster and another card face-down, and end my turn."

Two larger renderations of the cards appeared, one horizontal, the other vertical.

"M-my turn…" Yugi stuttered, adding a card to his hand. His grip faltered and all six of his cards fell to the ground.

The man chuckled darkly, amused by the sight of Yugi scrambling for his cards.

Yugi's friends watched on, unable to utter anything due to a combination of both fear and shock.

"I- I summon Magician's Valkyria."

A blonde haired magician appeared clad in a violet armor, wielding a magical staff. (4/1600/1800)

"M-magician's Valkyria attacks your monster."

The policeman didn't show any signs of being bothered as a burst of energy shot out towards his reversed monster.

A small explosion ensued, but when the smoke cleared a new monster could be seen. It was a snowman basically, wearing a red cap, with pebbles for eyes and sticks for hands, a much more intimidating monster seemed to lurk beneath it though, its tail swinging behing the snowman. (3/0/1900)

Yugi: 4000 - 3700 Policeman: 4000

"Snowman Eater's effect activates when flipped up." The man informed. "He devours one monster on the field."

The monster beneath the snowman hurtled towards the magician, easily breaking through her frantic defense and destroying her along with itself.

Yugi grit his teeth in annoyance. Not only did he failed to destroy his opponents monster, but he lost his monster to boot. "I set two cards facedown and end my turn."

As the two reversed cards appeared, the man drew. "I tribute Snowman Eater, to summon Mobius The Frost Monarch!"

The snowman disappeared and in its place a larger creature appeared. Garbed in what could only be assumed as armour the monarch lived up to its name, icicles erupted from the ground around it, as it seemingly stared at the opposing Yugi. (6/2400/1000)

"Mobius' effect activates, when he is advance summoned, he can destroy up to two Spell or Trap Cards on the field." The man said, smiling slightly. "Your face-down cards have to go."

The monarch shot two icicles towards the face-down cards, impaling them and destroying them.

"Mobius, attack!"

The monarch hardly moved, instead a barrage of hail suddenly manifested, flying towards Yugi.

The next thing that occured was shocking to the four friends, Yugi especially. The boy let out a loud scream as the hail struck him, pushing him back several feet.

"Yugi!" They all shouted.

The spiky haired boy laid on the ground, pain surging through his body. The bulk of the hail was made up of rock and pebbled sized ice, and though painful they were nothing compared to those with jagged edges capable of cutting through skin.

Yugi sat up slowly, checking himself for any injury. 'Only shallow cuts…' he felt rather relieved that none had embedded itself within him.

"What was that?!" Anzu asked, enraged.

"This is how duels are fought here, did you not know?" The man answered cooly.

"You bastard!" Honda yelled. "Why are you even doing this? How can you do this?"

"You'll find that with the right contact, anybody can do anything." He replied. He turned his attention towards Yugi, noticing the boy standing, albiet struggling to stay up. "Shall we continue?"

Yugi: 3700 - 1300 Policeman: 4000

"I end my turn." The man stated. "Now king of games, let's see what you can muster!"

* * *

 **Author's Note**

Within These Walls is the first in a planned trilogy centering around the consequent adventures of the Yu-Gi-Oh! canon characters.

All shall be revealed in time, the supposed incongruencies and discrepancies. This story shall get rather dark so…brace yourself I suppose. It is set in canon universe, besides a few original characters that'll appear, everybody else in the anime is the same, mostly, for now.

Just for clarity, words kept in a single quotes, like this 'words' signify characters' thoughts.  
And words kept in double quotes, like this "words" are those spoken.

Till the next chapter, feedback is welcome, and thank you for reading.


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